UAE gamers prepare for World Cup qualifier

The search is on to find the best computer gamers in the UAE. The Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) UAE Qualifier event - hosted by Game Frontier and supported by Windows Middle East magazine – will take place in Dubai from the 9th to the 10th of June.

The search is on to find the best computer gamers in the UAE. The Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) UAE Qualifier event - hosted by Game Frontier and supported by Windows Middle East magazine – will take place in Dubai from the 9th to the 10th of June. This event is tasked with finding the best PC gamers in the UAE, who will then go on to represent the country at the prestigious ESWC grand finals in Paris, France between July 6 and July 10. The competition centres around two games: Counter-Strike 1.6 (CS) is a team challenge in which groups of five players battle it out; while Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne expansion (WC3) is a strategic, single-player contest. The top Counter-Strike team and the best Warcraft 3 player from the UAE event will win expenses paid trips to France to join 800 gamers from 45 countries, where they will compete for global ESWC crowns. There’s cash at stake too – and plenty of it – as this year’s total prize fund for the international finals is over $300,000. Game Frontier’s UAE premium technology partner - whose performance processors will at the heart of the tournament’s computers - is AMD. nVidia is the competition's main worldwide partner. The location of the Dubai event will be the Games Network Cafe, which is in the Zeenah Building opposite Deira City Centre mall. The UAE contest is open to all UAE nationals and residents, and Counter-Strike (CS) teams can be mixed (in that three team members must be UAE representatives, while the remaining two can be from other countries). In addition, there is a minimum age limit of 16 years for all entrants. Anyone between the ages of 16 and 18 must have parental consent to enter the competition. More information is available online at www.gamefrontier.com. Also look out for a full report on the UAE round of the Electronic Sports World Cup 2005 in the August issue of Windows Middle East (on sale throughout July).